UK's advertising watchdog reveals the biggest scam ad trends of 2024

New data published by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has shown AI and deepfake ads, among others, continue to spread online. 

The ASA says it collaborates with online ad and social media platforms to tackle scam ads. It does this by passing on information from ads reported to it to all the major social media platforms and ad networks to help take down these ads and stop similar ones from appearing.

Which? has frequently found that fraudulent adverts are rife on social media platforms and search engines.

From the 1,691 scam ad reports that the ASA received last year, the organisation says that 177 alerts were sent to platforms to remove scam ads and act on the information given.

Read on to find out the most reported scam ads and the platforms’ response time in taking them down.

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Biggest scam ads

From its reports, the ASA found that the four biggest types of scam adverts in 2024 were:

1. Celebrity impersonation ads including those that claim to sell keto diet pills and promote investment schemes, such as crypto scams. It said it saw well-known figures such as Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, Stacey Solomon and Anton Du Beke being impersonated.
2. AI and deepfake scams including a deepfake video ad featuring King Charles promoting a dodgy cryptocurrency investment.
3. Travel scams such as those ‘offering’ free or super cheap local travel that typically impersonates Transport for Greater Manchester, Great Western Railway and ScotRail. The ads led to malicious websites which asked for your personal and financial details.
4. Brand sale scams including giveaways, such as a Smeg kettle for £3 and an iPhone 14 for £1.78, were advertised by scammers impersonating major retailers. They also claimed that the retailer was selling the items at low prices to get rid of excess stock. These ads led to dodgy websites asking for your personal and financial information.

Platform response times

Some platforms have been found to be slow to take down scams reported to them and, in some cases, have chosen not to take down obvious scams.

A Which? investigation looking at scam adverts found more than 90 examples of potentially fraudulent adverts. Whenever we were confident of something being a scam and in-site scam reporting tools were available, we reported the adverts.

Most of the platforms didn’t update us about the outcome of these reports, with the exception of Bing's parent company Microsoft, which confirmed an advert had violated its standards and said it would act, but didn’t specify how.

The ASA says it expects platforms to respond to its scam reports within 48 hours to confirm they’ve removed the ad. In 2024, the ASA reported that platforms responded to alerts within 48 hours 71% of the time and longer than 48 hours 16% of the time. However, 13% of its alerts weren’t responded to at all.

Stamp out Scams

The Online Safety Act became law in 2023 to make big tech platforms responsible for protecting their users from illegal harms, including fraud. Platforms that fail to protect their users will face fines of 10% of global yearly revenue or £18m, whichever is greater. 

Responsibility for enforcing these rules has fallen to Ofcom. Under the current timetable for implementation of these rules, platforms in scope of fraudulent advertising duties won’t be held accountable until 2027. 

Ofcom must implement the Online Safety Act in full as soon as possible to help prevent millions more children and adults from losing money to scam ads. The regulator must also take strong action against any firms that don't properly safeguard their users against user-generated fraud after new protections come into effect in March.

Rocio Concha, Which? Director of Policy and Advocacy, says:

'A flood of celebrity deepfakes and other scam adverts reinforces why the current slow, reactive and toothless system for tackling fraud online is woefully inadequate.

'The biggest online platforms have shown they're unwilling to take effective action to stop scam ads appearing in the first place, which is why specific requirements in the Online Safety Act for platforms to stop scam ads from appearing are so desperately needed.

'It is extremely disappointing that these protections have been kicked into the long grass and may not take effect until 2027. Ofcom must speed up the full implementation of the Online Safety Act so platforms that fail to tackle fraudulent ads can be hit with tough penalties – including multi-million pound fines.'